We were walking to a bike shop that used to exist (don’t ask) on Wyckoff, and we noticed the L Lofts at 1610 DeKalb (or 100 Wyckoff, can’t figure that out). The building is sorta cheesy from the outside, but the inside makes up for it: stunning, lofty space filled with light and boasting truly awesome views of the city. We’re particularly in love with the top floor unit that has a view of pretty much all of Manhattan from the Village to Harlem. The prices are great, too. For New York City. One of the larger units costs as much as we paid for our whole three family house, so we walked out of there with extra-big smiles on our faces.

Since two were stolen a few days ago, pretty much nobody has messed with my garden. Some punk pushed the blocks onto the plants again, but they’re tough little things, and they fluffed right back up. They’re really starting to thrive and spread to cover the bare-ass dirt around the tree, which is also starting to grow really quickly.

My friend Yury who lives downstairs said maybe it’s because they’re getting used to it. A little garden full of actual living things is no longer an oddity.

I think the garden is here to stay. I’m still planning on buying a fence. I leave nothing to chance.

Fried coochies, whah? Nah, that’s not the translation of cuchifrito, but anyone who has just heard the word for the first time can’t help but chuckle. Cuchifrito is kind of a catch-all word for various fried Puerto Rican concoctions. You can get mofongo, a dish made of mashed plantains and chicharrones and lots of garlic, and and a lot more Puerto Rican fare at La Isla del Cuchifrito on Graham Avenue, just before the WaMu near Broadway and Flushing. I couldn’t find any info online, so I can’t give you the address. We pigged out there recently — sidle up to the counter (yeah, they speak English) and order yourself a tall glass of parcha (passionfruit) or ajonjoli juice and pig out on really chewy alcapurrias and satisfying papas rellenas. The bacalaito frito…not so great. (Mine are better.)

Uh, well, it’s all still there…mostly. Yesterday some little punk stomped all over the really fragile flowers. Purposefully, with malice. What a hell his life must be. So about 30 seconds after I noticed the crushed flowers, I yelled at another kid who stooped down trying to touch the flowers. He came up to me babbling in kid-nonsense-speak about talking to somebody “down there” and I snapped “you can talk to somebody down there without touching my shit over here.” I immediately regretted saying it. But then his mother walked past and starting flipping out about saying that word to a child, blah blah blah, and she said “fuck” about 19 times. When I pointed this out to her, she screeched (already halfway down the block) “IT DOESN’T MATTAH, I’M THE MOTHAH!” Sound logic there, I guess.

Today, I came home from coffee with a friend to find two plants missing — yanked out of the bare earth, roots still stuck in the ground. You’d think the kind of person who steals flowers right out of someone else’s dirt wouldn’t care about flowers to begin with. Well, I swore I’d win, so I’ll just replant something else. And pick up the trash that has collected inside the planter again. 95% of the people who walk by admire the flowers, especially as they get bigger and grow in number as the days go by. So for them, I will persevere.

Fuck the vandals and thieves. They’ll be gone within the year anyhow.

The people on Curbed are jerks. Everyone, especially those who haven’t been to Bushwick in 6-7 years, or even two years, are quick to shit on our hood, while those who live here scramble to defend our turf. I chimed in (it’s response #67 if the anchor doesn’t work) thusly:

You people are douchebags. Bushwick is great. We have great pizza (yes, made by Italians…from Italy), we have hipster junk, we have architecture, we have parks, we are minutes from Union Square on the L. This place is not any kind of warzone. I don’t know anyone who was so much as threatened, let alone mugged, and I live halfway to Myrtle — a good 7-10 minute walk to either Morgan or Jeff on the L. My neighbors throw cool parties, we have BBQs, and when it snowed, the old man across the street showed this Miami boy how to shovel snow. The corner bodega is a laugh riot and they have magnificent FLORIDA avocadoes for a buck (not those sad little California things).

Every day more new faces stream in front of my house. Hipsters and other, uh, non-Bushwick-natives are moving into buildings and houses deep into the neighborhood now — the bombed-out artist warehouse phase of Bushwick is done.

Hmph.

Guess what, people? Bushwick has the best pizza in New York. I know this because I have had the pizza in my family’s old neighborhood in the Bronx, on Arthur Avenue, and that is the best pizza in the city. My father won’t believe me when I tell him I have found even better.

Fortunata’s II (a new location of Fortunata’s from Ridgewood) at 305 Knickerbocker has real pepperoni (not that spongy Hormel junk that Tony’s down the block serves from a bucket) and the lightest, crispiest crust I have ever had. In my life. The owners and the workers are all Italian. Like, from Italy. And if you are lucky enough to get a zeppole fresh out of the fryer, you are having a very good day.

The prices are ridiculously low. Three slices of pizza, a pepperoni roll, two drinks, and 4 zeppole cost $12. A whole large pie is $12. You can’t go wrong here. Now go!

It’s actually the first full day in the life of my new sidewalk garden, which yesterday was a dry gray patch of dirt, a raggedy old stump, and gray concrete bricks. It’s now has a new, budding tree, blue and white amaryllis bulbs waiting to burst with color, and a few other wispy grassy flowers, with the gray concrete blocks reincarnated as a temporary wall. My neighbor says “they” always steal his flowers, but I figured, mine are so small, what would be the point?

Well I of course woke up 4 times last night to look out the window and check on my babies. All good. Then this afternoon I look outside, and some punk pushed one of the blocks on top of one of the plants. No big deal — I put the hearty ones on the edges. I put everything right, picked up all the trash that had accumulated for the day, and went back inside.

I will win this fight. Let Bushwick be green!

I’m on my way to the City last night at about 11, and as I enter the Bogart entrance for the L, I notice a cop around the corner, just out of view of the turnstiles. I saw him, and then turned back and asked what time that entrance closes. He said he didn’t know, but that they should just close it for good.

I said “No way, this is the one that should be open all the time, it’s the most-used.”

“It’s dangerous. I have scared at least 6 people so far just this hour. And I’m the good guy. What if I was the bad guy? Who would save you then?”

I went “uhhhh…no…body?”

Office McCreepy nodded. “That’s right, nobody.”

I kept a suspicious eye on him as I walked toward the stairs, and then shot down them when I reached them.

Is this the tactic the police department has employed to make us remember we need them? Where were they when some punk stole my trash can last week? I only live two blocks from the police station. Frankly, a cop hiding out of sight and then all but jumping out and yelling “boo!” at all who enter doesn’t illustrate to me the necessity of, say, increasing the police presence in the city, or possibly raising salaries. It illustrates to me that this city is so safe the cops have nothing better to do than wait around, eating shit and thinking of ways to freak people out. A cynical propaganda ploy. Very Bushian.

I think it’s time to lay off some cops.

Hipsters and other weenies avoid “native” destinations in Bushwick like the plague — witness the throngs of them in depressing, desolate places like Wyckoff between Jefferson and Starr-ish, their swarming of Bogart and the East Williamsburg industrial area, and their complete absense (not one!) in places like Knickerbocker Avenue by Bushwick (aka Maria Hernandez) Park.

Knickerbocker is one of my favorite places in Bushwick. It’s a real traditional main street, where everyone in the neighborhood goes to shop, eat, gossip and carry on. In two blocks of Knick this Saturday we got great pizza (Tony’s at 336), grabbed a big bag of plum tomatoes and some garlic (S & S Farm Market at 317), stocked up on assorted amaretti, biscotti, etc. (Circo’s Pastry at 312), and blew more money on stuff to fix up our crumbling money pit (Ace Hardware at 347). I didn’t really even mean for it to be Italian-themed…

I know it’s a matter of time before all the scary warehouse spaces get filled up with left-wing bookstores and coffee houses and vegan raw restaurants and the market starts pressuring the wispy-haired and pale among us to start opening shops on Knickerbocker, but even before that happens I urge my likely audience here to submerge themselves in local culture before they put it out of business. That last thing is not a value judgement, just a statement of fact.

I’m looking out my window just as a huge black guy turns the corner. He’s swaggering slowly down the sidewalk, swaddled in his thick navy blue hooded jacket…and he’d look particularly menacing if he weren’t walking a tiny blonde chihuahua wearing a pink sweater.